I'm looking to plan a rock climbing trip (for me and the wife) and was wondering what are the best outdoor places for top rope climbing? Neither of us can lead, so the top would have to be easily accessible so that we could set up an anchor (or use a pre-existing one). 5.7 - 5.9 difficulty, 30 to 50 ft routes would be ideal. We live in the midwest, so that general area would be best but we're open to any place in the 48 US states.

Just about any where you go will have toproping. How abut a bit more information. Any perticular state(s) catch you eye? What state are you in? the "mid west" is pretty vague. I consider the mid west as Minnesota, Iowa Missouri Illois Indiana Ohio Michigan and Ohio; I can drop a laundry list of places to go. How about narrowing things down a bit.

Just about any where you go will have toproping. How abut a bit more information. Any perticular state(s) catch you eye? What state are you in? the "mid west" is pretty vague. I consider the mid west as Minnesota, Iowa Missouri Illois Indiana Ohio Michigan and Ohio; I can drop a laundry list of places to go. How about narrowing things down a bit.

Wisonsin should be on your list, and Devil's Lake is popular for TRing from what I understand.

Just about any where you go will have toproping. How abut a bit more information. Any perticular state(s) catch you eye? What state are you in? the "mid west" is pretty vague. I consider the mid west as Minnesota, Iowa Missouri Illois Indiana Ohio Michigan and Ohio; I can drop a laundry list of places to go. How about narrowing things down a bit.

Wisonsin should be on your list, and Devil's Lake is popular for TRing from what I understand.

Just what I was going to say, I've never been there, but Devil's Lake is they only place that I've ever heard of that seems to be a top roping destination crag.

We live in Michigan. I wouldn't necessarily want to be limited to the states surrounding Mich though. Travelling /flying isn't out of the question. Some place scenic with mountains would be nice, MI is pretty flat and uninteresting. Short, easy approaches also. We are pretty noobish, so the simpler the better.

We live in Michigan. I wouldn't necessarily want to be limited to the states surrounding Mich though. Travelling /flying isn't out of the question. Some place scenic with mountains would be nice, MI is pretty flat and uninteresting. Short, easy approaches also. We are pretty noobish, so the simpler the better.

Why limit yourself then? Have you considered hiring a guide to learn some new skills?

I didn't really consider guiding because I assumed it could get expensive. This would be a 1-2 week trip. I don't know how much a guide would cost but I could see it getting pricey. How much do guides charge, generally? What do they do exactly? I assumed they would lead a route, then hang around while we each took several turns on the route. Seems kind of boring for them and a little awkward for us.

I didn't really consider guiding because I assumed it could get expensive. This would be a 1-2 week trip. I don't know how much a guide would cost but I could see it getting pricey. How much do guides charge, generally? What do they do exactly? I assumed they would lead a route, then hang around while we each took several turns on the route. Seems kind of boring for them and a little awkward for us.

You pay them to do whatever you want them to do.

I would recommend hiring one for a day or two to teach you what you would need to know to be independent wherever you choose to go.

If you make it to Montana, hit me up I can lead at 5.7-9 no problem. I would be more than willing to show you some really nice routes. Along with proper rope mangment, various anchors setup depending on what you incounter and much more. My price is a bit of gas and beer money and good since of humor.

However the Gunks does not have extensive top roping on the Preserve land. There's some, but a lot of other routes that lend themselves to top-roping require leading something easier near-by to set them up. A much better bet for top roping is Peterskill in Minnewaska State Park just to the west of the Preserve (and still considered a part of the Gunks). Something else to keep in mind though is that many of the TR's in the Gunks require trad gear to build the anchor. At Peterskill in fact it is illegal to use the pitch pines at the cliff-top as anchors - you have to go back a ways and construct an anchor using trad gear (are there bolts there yet?) which sometimes also means needing either a second rope or a 30' - 60' length of static line or webbing.

Generally speaking, destination climbing tends to be lead -- trad or sport -- oriented, rather than TR-oriented. It tends to be the bigger, more exciting stuff.

Places with top-roping tend to be the smaller, local, cliffs in different areas, and not generally the places you'd go for a week or two on vacation.

I know you say lower 48 -- but is Canada out of the question?

The best place I've hit for top-roping is, in fact, Montagne d'Argent in the province of Quebec. There are a number of different cliffs, with well-maintained hiking trails to the cliffs, and for many of the cliffs, trails setup for accessing the tops of the cliff, and often cables along the top of the cliff so that you can be safely clipped in while setting up top-rope anchors. (Though, for some of the cliffs, the trail access is a bit less obvious than others.) There is, also, on-site camping. Probably on the order of a week's worth of top-rope climbing there.

And, if you're thinking of that, there's some smaller cliffs that are worth a day or two's stop along the way. Some stuff on the Niagara escarpment west of Toronto, and a couple smaller cliffs near Ottawa.

Further extension would be to head south into the Adirondacks, where some of the areas also are top-ropable. I know, for example, that many climbs on the Beer Walls in the Chapel Pond pass area can be top-roped.